Revamped federal election boundaries tabled
HALIFAX — The report outlining proposed changes to Nova Scotia’s federal electoral map was tabled in the House of Commons on Thursday.
The federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Nova Scotia redrew the 11 electoral districts in the province with the aim of bringing the populations of each riding within a closer range.
The result is significant adjustments to the existing boundaries and the commission has also proposed changes to some of the electoral district names.
“When drawing the boundaries for the 11 electoral districts, we received advice from many citizens and organizations across the province,” said Justice Cindy A. Bourgeois, chairwoman of the three-member commission that includes political science professors Louise Carbert of Dalhousie University and David Johnson from Cape Breton University.
“As a result, the commission made a number of changes to the initial proposal,” Bourgeois said. “The commission is satisfied that it has balanced its statutory obligations with the views of the people of Nova Scotia in striving for the goal of effective representation.”
Following the publication of the initially proposed electoral map, nine public hearings took place across the province between May 30 and June 27, where residents were able to voice any concerns.
According to the tabled proposal, the riding of Southwest Nova will be reconfigured and renamed Acadian Shore-Shelburne.
Cape Breton Regional Municipality will encompass the bulk of the Sydney-Victoria riding and the remainder of Cape Breton Island will be part of the Cape-Breton Antigonish riding, moving Antigonish County from the former Central Nova riding represented by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.
There will be a Pictou-Eastern Shore-Preston riding, as opposed to an originally proposed riding that would have encompassed Pictou County and the corridor of Hants East from Enfield to Shubenacadie.
The Shubenacadie-Bedford Basin riding will be made up of the basin and areas making up the Shubenacadie canal system.
The Halifax West riding has also been reconfigured.
“I certainly welcome the change as it relates to including the corridor of East Hants back into the Kings-Hants (riding),” said Liberal MP Kody Blois, who is in his second term representing the riding.
“Under the legislation and objectively, that is the right decision. I am very pleased that they listened to the community of East Hants that had a lot of opposition to that. I also welcome the fact that there is going to be an inclusion of more communities in Kings County towards Berwick.
“I think, by and large, the commission has done a good job as it relates to the riding that I have the privilege to represent and I’ll leave it to other colleagues to comment on if they think the commission has done a good job.”
Canada’s constitution requires federal electoral districts be reviewed after each 10-year census to reflect changes and movements in the population. The current redistribution process began last October, led by independent commissions in each province.
The formula takes the population of the province, which in Nova Scotia’s case was 969,383 in 2021, an increase of 47,656 since the 2011 10year census, and divides the population by the number of ridings (11 in Nova Scotia) to come up with a quotient.
The Supreme Court of Canada has determined that redistribution is necessary if any of the ridings in a province exceeds or lags behind the quotient or projected riding average by more than 25 per cent.
In the case of Nova Scotia, the riding of Halifax West would have 111,944 people in 2022, 27 per cent more than the provincial riding average.
The commission found a significant increase in population in urban Halifax and its outlying areas. Notably, the riding of Halifax has increased in population by 14,367 in the last decade, and Halifax West accounts for over 50 per cent of the province's growth, with an increase of 24,669.
Although other rural constituencies have shown smaller decreases in population, Cape Breton-Canso (a decrease of 3,867), Central Nova (a decrease of 1,409) and Sydney-Victoria (a decrease of 967) have shown the greatest losses.
“In Kings-Hants, they had proposed taking essentially the 102 highway down to the Shubenacadie River, from Enfield to Milford, and proposed to put that into PictouEastern Shore-Preston,” Blois said.
“You can appreciate that people were going no, no, we’re defined by the Shubenacadie River, not by the 102 highway. You can’t split up the corridor from Belnan and the other side of the highway. There was a big push in our community to make sure that all East Hants was included together in whatever the federal representation was. The message was bring all of East Hants to be part of KingsHants. They’ve done that.”
The proposal comes back to the House of Commons, where it will be studied by the Commons procedure and affairs committee. MPs will have an opportunity to file objections that can be considered by the commission.
A final report would then be determined and filed by June. Any changes approved will not take effect until April 2024.